The man behind the spy charges

The day after reporters flocked to a courtroom in downtown Manhattan to catch a glimpse of the 84-year-old New Jersey retiree arrested this week for spying for Israel, reporters converged on the man’s hometown of Monroe, N.J. to talk to friends, neighbors and anyone else willing to spill what they knew of the alleged spy, Ben-Ami Kadish.

“You can know people for years and just not know them,” a woman named Anita told The New York Times. “Nobody ever said anything bad about them,” a “shocked” neighbor told the New York Jewish Week. The spy story has been a boon to the New Jersey Jewish News, which scooped them all with a 2006 profile of Kadish and his wife, Doris. That story showed the couple hosting a charity event in their sukkah, portraying them as pillars of their Jewish community. Who knew?